[Lace Watkins]

https://laceonrace.com/2021/02/16/lanes-lines-and-the-relational/

Lanes, Lines, And The Relational

Discussion

[Laura Berwick]

***Cross-posting from the original discussion***

I can still recall some of what went through my mind as I sat looking at my laptop at the Lace on Race post where I committed to being “All In”. I… recognized at that point that I did not have to be known. I could form a definite lane and stay in it, contrary to what was asked of me. And as an intensely introverted person, that was a lot of what I wanted.

But I had come to Lace on Race as part of learning to be a better friend to Black people and people of color in my life. Because it had been brought home after a life of thinking I was doing all right, that all right was all I was doing. And all right wasn’t even what I felt like the world I am part of was doing. And doing better would mean doing different, so now was the time to do different. To be a new person doing a new thing in a new way.

So that lane is not so much a lane here. And… I can still see where the concept of lanes can keep me from overstepping among people I might harm by overstepping, people I am not in relationship with (yet?) out in my offline world. But here, in this community, being all in, agreeing to adhere to the guidelines that shape the new things and new ways, I can’t hide in a lane from accountability, and I can’t hide in a lane from calling others to account.

It’s that community part. That’s a very new thing and new way for me on this scale. But sitting down at the table, in a kitchen, or in a cozy dining room, or in a grand bistro… that brings home for me very concretely how one can commune in kind candor, still saying and hearing things that may be hard to say and hear, but are needed. That’s what I’m here for.

[Shannon Brescher Shea]

This discussion of “lanes” reminds me of previous discussions of boundaries and how those can be used to push people away and break community. Thinking about and recognizing those different roles in different communities is important so we know where to listen and where to contribute and where to stand up as needed. One of the things that is very distinctive about this community is that Lace very clearly has set expectations for us about boundaries and lanes. It definitely requires a level of responsible vulnerability, whereas often people are either vulnerable but not responsible (and sloshing their emotional bucket everywhere) or closed off.

[Jessie Lee]

I love this story as a concrete example of courageous and cohesive intervention as a group. This wasn’t a dog pile, this was everyone acting reflexively to lessen and mitigate immediate harm, which you were obligated to do solely because you witnessed it. In this situation (and in every situation), a prior relationship and context isn’t required to justify intervention.

I’m wondering how we get to the point where we feel so little dissonance to opt out of intervening on behalf of a fellow human who is suffering? How do we become so numb to that suffering that we aren’t compelled to jump into action like everyone in your group was. I think that white people especially have become so desensitized to violence through our silent complicity. Like… in being a frequently silent bystander, we numb ourselves to the pain and suffering of others by repetition of the complicit response, which is doing nothing. Eventually, this causes our muscles of kindness, courage, and compassion to atrophy.

Then even when we do feel some dissonance about not acting, however deeply buried and weak it may be, we can tell ourselves that we want to help but don’t know how. My incompetence in lessening and mitigating real-time harm doesn’t just happen randomly; it happens through years of choosing not to respond. Years of choosing apathy and my comfort over human dignity and decency.

This behavior shapes my beliefs, which influence my behavior. Each time I choose my comfort, I see “the Other” as less and less of a person to whom I owe anything. Certainly not risking my social capital or safety to protect them.

This… doesn’t seem THAT far off from the attitudes of white women who watch from across the street as police brutalize and murder Black people, or the women who packed their family a picnic lunch to eat while watching a lunching, or from those of the white women who participated in enslaving Black people 400 years ago. Would I be one of those women if I lived in a different time and with a different set of choice points?

I’ll never know, and I don’t want to dwell on that while I have a real opportunity to be a different kind of woman now. I want to be someone who does not tolerate hate and violence, and I give those words meaning by stepping in every time I see hate and violence. Metaphorically, it really doesn’t matter how many people are “on the scene” when I get there, because it’s never enough until we live in that Beloved Community we say we want to live in.

[Emily Holzknecht]

*crossposted from the original discussion*

Lanes are necessary now because our relationships are not strong and our ability to be in healthy relationships is not strong. Lanes are necessary not because Black people, indigenous people and people of color inherently and eternally must drive in segregation. Lanes are necessary because of our context and our history and the immense harm that white people have done and continue to do to others. In the Beloved Community where poverty is no more, where racism and all its sub -isms are no more, where militarism is no more and where people get to live their lives generation after generation without the harm of those three evils and heal from generational trauma, then there will be no need for lanes. While we do not have a universal Beloved Community right now, Lace’s table that she sets where all are there to serve and to embody Hesed is a microcosm of Beloved Community where lanes are not needed because lines are not crossed and both the deep relationships built and the deep commitment to relational ethics ensures that trust is possible, that the beloved sitting at the table come to serve and to love and not to harm.

[Megan Parmar]

In another post I’ve talked about how I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this and holding my own hand. I knew I was wrong, I knew at a high level why I was wrong, but I didn’t understand it at the granular level to fix it and didn’t want to put it on others to educate me. I took a step back to not cause further harm while I reflected on how I could have stepped up and as usual, I was wrong as Lace’s wise guidelines were right. I should have come here and engaged and I would have found the words I needed over a week ago. Specifically, Clare’s other posts on the original article summed up everything I had been thinking about so accurately. Thinking about lane’s and different relationships with POC – this is a community, not a random Facebook news feed article. Lace is not a stranger. I’ve seen her character and saw it on display in that exchange and should have defended. I was focused on ‘an exchange between two POC’ when it wasn’t. It was one person attacking another. My hand ringing caused more harm and if I am to be truly honest with myself, the focus on my comfort. Rhonda’s examples of what could have been said were very helpful as well.

[Clare Steward]

*crossposted from the original discussion*

There is permission in community- By engaging here, I am accepting course correction and feedback with an open heart and mind even when it is difficult to hear and I accept that it is most important for me to hear when the feedback is difficult to receive. I trust that when I am being called in, I am being called in to alignment for the purpose of lessening and mitigating harm. Doing the work in community and surrounded by trusted relationships is crucial….I can not always see when I am out of alignment and having it pointed out to me from the right spirit will help me carry the right spirit and vision forward in to other spaces both virtual and in person.

I have a responsibility to reciprocate course correction and guidance and calling others in with Hesed love because relationships are a two way street. I am not here to merely consume what is being served up but to learn how to serve, to learn how to lessen and mitigate harm endured by Black and Brown people all the time, in all spaces and in all places. To only consume what is being served is transactional and true change can not come about that way- behavior changes come with deep work. Course correction will not be provided in the same way in all spaces and in order for me to truly hear it without my usual defenses of putting up walls and shields and offending from the victim position before abandoning the work, I must build the strong foundation that keeps me pointed in the direction of the NS. This community, this house that Lace built is the space where I can learn to build my own foundation and continue to strengthen it and reinforce it- it is not one and done, it is ongoing and without a strong foundation with the right ingredients, everything else built on top of it will crumble.

I love the visual of creating my mirror and giving it freely to those with whom I am community and relationship with. I have chosen to hand my mirror to others knowing it is fragile and breakable and trusting that they will safe-guard it and hand it to me to look into when it is needed. I have chosen to hold the mirrors of others and safe-guard them and hold them up when needed. There is risk in this for sure, knowing that mirrors can get thrown and smashed but I also know pieces can be picked up and new mirrors created. I also acknowledge that the mirrors of Black and Brown people are broken more frequently and need to be handled with greater care. Community, relationships, and seeing eye to eye means that when a mirror is broken, especially when it is not my own, that I step up with a broom and a dust pan for cleanup and that I am there to support rebuilding.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by  Clare Steward.

[Shannon Brescher Shea]

The extension of the mirror metaphor – and the fragility and vulnerability of it – is so important. The trust we give people when we share those reflections of who we really are is so deep and requires a lot of both parties. I think that’s a big part of the importance of fictive imagination, both in this community and outside of it. It’s looking at someone else’s mirror and seeing them, not just ourselves.

[Shara Cody]

*Cross posted from original post with further thoughts in reply*

Each woman brings something to share, serves others first, listens, engages with Hesed. That we need to assume good intentions in others and to take our shields down so we can be in relationship with giving and receiving. This is what is being asked of us in this community and in real life so we can be safer for Black and brown people.

Lanes vary based on the relationship you have with someone but lines like humiliation and punching down are always present and clear. The deeper the relationship the more the lanes and lines are clearly understood by each person. In the LoR community if there were rules around who could speak to whom, there wouldn’t be eye to eye relationships and therefore no Hesed so I can’t place lanes above lines.

Gift and risk: bringing what you have to offer and including the parts that will be harder for others to understand or accept. I’ve received so many gifts and seen the great risks that come with them at LoR. Leading this community has always been full of risks for Lace and after the violence by a community member, I see another set of risks by and for Lace that I hadn’t recognized before.

I hear this as a call to commit to go deeper into community and relationships in order to lessen harm to Black and brown people and I accept and honor this gift and permission to be in community. I’m ready to engage with love and be called in to make the world safer for Black and brown people.

[Shara Cody]

On the original post, @kels brought to my attention the use of “good intentions” being weaponized by white people where impact is what matters. In the context of this community where we all have a shared ethos and agreed to the guidelines, is there a name or a word for describing the assumption that we are “good actors”, as Lace says, that doesn’t mean intent prevents kind candor and in fact that it requires it? I’m going to remove “intention” and “intent” from my vocabulary although it’s going to be hard because of the white supremacy rooted in me. Maybe there is no replacement because we are fully leaving intention behind because impact is the only thing that matters.

The call I hear in this post to commit to go deeper in community and in lessening harm to BIPOC by white supremacy and white people including me, was already the request by Lace. Doing this work is committing to constantly going deeper and giving more of myself to reduce harm.

[Emily Holzknecht]

Reading your question about whether there is an alternate word for describing the assumption that we are “good actors”, perhaps this is not the part of speech you are looking for as it describes the “assumer” rather than the “assumed”, but I am thinking of the word “generosity.” The idea of seeing other people with generosity, which I encountered here at Lace on Race, has been significant for me.

[Shara Cody]

@emily thank you, this is what I was thinking of and trying to articulate; it’s about being generous with others.

[Rhonda Freeman]

Shara, something that comes up for me about ‘intention’ is to align it with my commitment to the North Star. Having both the intention and the commitment to be in this space and to engage does not mean I will not have impact or make mistakes or cause harm, but it does mean that I commit to keep on walking. Intention is not a bad thing to have when it turns me in the right direction. It is not helpful if I simply stand there and don’t actually do the walking:)

[Shara Cody]

@rhonda these positive aspects of intention are good and I can remember that action and impact are still most crucial.

[Grace Bannerman]

Once again, this has me thinking on the power of Hesed, how rarely I have practiced it, and how I want to/am obligated to practice it more. There is some risk involved in doing so, but it’s important risk given the potential to deepen relationship, as well as one’s personal commitment to being authentic. Taking the risk is an opportunity to show trust in the Other as well.

Another key point is that there is no one-size-fits all formula for good relationship, or single way to behave at all times to be a safer white woman. Case in point: I’m usually wary of “colourblindness” (when I recognize it) because it benefits oppressors – it can minimize or silence racialized people’s experiences and means not seeing people for who they are. However, there are some fundamental human imperatives if someone is being harmed, as outlined in this piece. I need to learn to assess these situations and act much faster.

I see how the type and depth of a relationship also affect where the interactions land on the spectrum between the specific, personal and trusting and general rules about lanes (if they’re subscribed to). This community has expectations – chosen imperatives – for interaction and behaviour that can supersede those lanes. I realize that I have not been living up to those expectations the way I think I can, that I am still holding back to feel safe (aka comfortable). Although Lace is very vulnerable and has shared a lot of herself, which, as Miela pointed out, is extra difficult/risky as a Black woman, I also want to avoid presuming familiarity, which I did early on here and which I’ve seen happen with online content creators in the past. That can’t be an excuse for me not to engage, though. I need to take the risk and be vulnerable as well, and really start living out eye to eye. At the same time, I recognize that that means Black and Brown and racialized community members are putting themselves at greater risk to be here than I am.

[Commented before reading others’ comments on original post or repost – will read and circle back if necessary.]

[Shannon Brescher Shea]

This definitely provides some food for thought on the power of true community, especially in physical distancing that we’ve done so much of this year. The idea that we want to be better people for the sake of our friends – someone they can be proud of – is in many ways so against white supremacy’s worship of power and individualism. I think it’s easy if you’ve been hurt to think that you don’t care what anyone thinks. (I know I had this attitude for a long time and can still retreat into it in times of pain.)

But as this shows, it’s important to care about what the people you value think. That they can help us grow and learn in ways that we simply couldn’t if we weren’t in community with them. It’s also a reminder that community and friendship is grounded in eye-to-eye walking, which we can’t have if we’re not constantly working against the racism that works to separate and put us in hierarchies.

[Author]

Replies